I’m sorry. He has been beating the same drum since September 12, 2001. Trying to portray his brand of bigotry as misinterpreted jokes or occasional errors of fact is utterly unpersuasive, to me. I am willing to place him in the same category as Limbaugh as a comedian who happens to have a political following, but Limbaugh is also capable of being funny and if I am going to dismiss Limbaugh as a bigoted humorist, then Maher certainly fits the same description.
I do find the following amusing:
in that, in my view, he personifies what he is criticizing.
And yet, you are repeating the same simplistic trope that treats “Islam” as a monolithic entity, ignoring the many differences among the several philosophical/theological streams of Islam. If Maher actually spent the energy to drop in an occasional adjective, he might come close to being occasionally correct. Identifying Wahabbist or Salafist Islam as a source of violence, for example, or noting that a specific tradition had led to a particular act would not hurt his presentation, but it would make him less of a spewer of hatred.
There are various beliefs within the much larger umbrella of Islam that are dangerous. Refusing to learn the differences among those beliefs or the people who hold them is silly, promoting hatred where we could actually be seeking and discovering allies within Islam to oppose those who are violent. If I were Muslim and I heard idiots equating my beliefs to those of Khomeini or bin Laden in such a way that I was threatened by the results of that speech, I might find myself having to make alliances with such people simply to defend myself. If Maher is too stupid to recognize that, he deserves all the insults heaped upon him.
When Westboro Baptist Church or Ian Paisley or the Ugandan anti-homosexual laws are brought up in discussion, most people identify the particulars rather than blaming all those actions on “Christianity,” (and those who do blame it all on Christianity tend to be dismissed as cranks). Maher may well equate Islam and Christianity in his anti-religious fervor, so that it makes no difference to him. However, in the current political and social climate, his words on Islam support one area of hatred and bigotry while his words on Christianity do not promote that same level of hatred. That he fails to see, (through ignorance of apathy), the difference while he charges ahead with his polemics, lacking any nuance, simply highlights the bigotry he promotes.
Speaking for myself, I’m saying that as the world makes progress across the board, though both scientific and social experiments (societies), some of what once have been excusable in ages past becomes becomes less so.
For the purpose of this particular discussion, that doesn’t matter.
Yep, anything to protect Islam from the condemnation it deserves. The point is that in order to give them this pass you need to DeLorean back into history to find Christians so dumb-fuck barbaric. You should think about that.
Again, notice who you need to compare the barbaric Islamists of today to. Now, while I may accept that some small isolated mountain village might deserve somewhat of a pass on this, to attempt to give a sect like Wahabbists a pass flies in the face of reason. Do you think that the leaders of the religion are ignorant of the where the world is today? Ignorant of the advances in science? Ignorant o civilized concepts like democracy, equal protection under the law, religious freedom. That’s both extraordinary and extraordinarily insulting to a sect with millions of very wealthy and well educated followers.
Yes it does. My argument is that specific interpretations of Islam are to blame, not Islam as a whole.
What the fuck? Who am I giving a pass to? The Wahabbist terrorists are violent asshole sons of bitches. They are scum of the earth. Wahabbism is an evil philosophy. They get and deserve no pass.
Yes, I compare them to past violent barbaric sons of bitches. They are scum, just like the Crusader mass murderers of the past. I’m not defending them at all, in any way whatsoever.
What the fuck are you talking about? They are scum. Among the worst people on earth, among the worst people in history. Wahabbism (and other extreme interpretations that promote violence) is a terrible philosophy, and responsible for much violence.
How the fuck am I defending these sons of bitches?
No. I was talking about the ones who commit murder – the ones who commit murder are definitely murderous, barbaric assholes, the same as the Crusader mass murderers of past centuries.
I am curious how you think this magical transformation of the world is supposed to occur. (Or why you believe it should have already occurred.) It took over four hundred years for the idea that slavery was wrong to develop from the first tentative questioning of the practice to its eventual abandonment in the West. It has not been fully embraced by others outside the West. The rights of women to hold property and inherit in their own name that the Muslim conquest brought to Spain was rejected by the Christian West for over twelve hundred years (probably because ideas from invaders were considered bad) until they were finally re-invented and only later broadly recognized in the early twentieth century, (and not fully adopted until the late twentieth century). It took over three hundred years for the general concept of democratic and republican forms of government to permeate Europe and North America (after percolating longer in Britain and its colonies). Americans still had episodes in which they were killing each other over religion as late as the 1840s and 1850s–usually over something as stupid as which version of the bible to read in public school.
There are certainly acts of barbarism occurring today. However, the idea that a society in one part of the world that advances a belief somehow makes that belief prevalent in all other parts of the world requires magical thinking.
The reality is that the suppression of barbarism has often arrived, (if it has arrived), at the end of a rifle barrel. And, just as the Christians of Spain never adopted the more enlightened attitudes toward women that the Islamic invasion brought from North Africa, Muslims in various parts of the world have resisted being told how to conduct their lives by outsiders with better weapons. As it happens, much of today’s violence is actually the step back from the level of civility that countries such as Iran and Afghanistan had already achieved prior to interference from the West. Both of those countries were considered modern states (at least in their cities) throughout most of the twentieth century. Women participated in society, wore western garb, studied at and taught at universities, engaged in professions, and so on. It was only after interference from the West, (US and USSR), disrupted their societies that the most radically conservative and violent portions of those societies seized power. And, in a similar fashion to the French Revolution, those who were most violent were most successful. Since, in those countries, the various fundamentalist religious types were the most violent, they brought their odd beliefs to power with them. Even today, stories of women being brutalized in Iran tend to be reports from the boondocks where Western ideas never penetrated.
We are watching much the same thing happen in Syria, where the attempt to overthrow a despot has brought out the most violent opponents who have brought their fundamentalist beliefs with them.
In places like Saudi Arabia, there was never an exchange of trade that might have brought Western ideas into the country. (Even with oil exploration, today, Westerners tend to live in their own ghettos, rarely interacting with the local peoples to challenge the preconceived notions from earlier centuries.)
The most horrifying stories come to us, not from the range of Muslim countries across the whole world, but from a limited number of locations, routinely those locations into which Western ideas have never penetrated or those locations where, following social disruption, particular varieties of fundamentalist belief have overwhelmed those societies, setting back their development from stages they had already achieved.
The Islamic world had its big “oh crap” moment with Western Europe when Napoleon invaded Egypt and the Ottoman armies could basically do nothing. The 19th century and early 20th century were periods of intense debate everywhere (including the Ottoman controlled parts of modern day Saudi Arabia) over how to deal with suddenly being “behind” the West in increasingly obvious ways, and then of course colonialism and all that came with it. The somewhat secular nature of places like Egypt and Iran (especially in regards to women’s issues) for some decades was in fact a modern reaction to Western influence and not the historical norm. So your overall idea is right but it needs to be extended back another century or two.
The increasing power of Islamist and conservative organizations in places like Egypt, while strongly influenced by Cold War meddling and oppressive ‘secular’ governments, was a process that also started as a reaction to 19th century events. The Muslim Brotherhood, is an absolutely key organization in this internationally, and even though they did not get political power anywhere in the 20th century, they and related organizations drastically changed public religion in many Islamic communities. The reason they were able to be so influential in Egypt in particular was largely thanks to a changing strategy from the government to crush leftist opposition and co-opt the religious sector. Where reactionary Islamists have seized power, yes it has been through the weakness of the opposing state, but this does not mean that they are actually a throwback. They’re a modern way of being crappy. Islamic communities have almost completely engaged with the modern, and have for a long time.
Even Saudi Arabia’s current position after the House of Saud took over owes a great deal to interaction with the West through the Muslim Brotherhood, many members of which were exiled there at certain times. Many of them were educated and they built the modern Saudi Arabian school system. While KSA later soured on the Brothers, their influence remains. Even with some reforms after 9/11, the Saudi public religious education curriculum has taught disgusting intolerance, and it is traceable to this modern influence.
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No. I was talking about the ones who commit murder – the ones who commit murder are definitely murderous, barbaric assholes, the same as the Crusader mass murderers of past centuries.
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Traditional, devoutly religious types generally don’t have to flip out and be terrorists if all they want to do is be assholes. They have accepted traditional paths in their own societies to do that.
I don’t think you addressed my question about quantifying violence earlier but it does get into the heart of this matter. Counting up the number of terrorist attacks doesn’t scratch the surface of violence that happens every day. The people who are going and becoming terrorists, for the most part, are not the major source of violence in their societies. Governments and normalized social groups perpetuate a tremendous amount of oppression and structural violence on people, and you can’t count this up like car bombings. But structural violence (and how it is intricately tied to religio-cultural norms) is an uncomfortable subject for most people and in the West talking about it leads to some sobering realizations.
So instead we talk about al-Qaeda or ISIS as if they are the big evil in the Islamic world, but we don’t talk in the same way about the governments of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Uzbekistan, and a host of other countries, all of which have religious establishments supporting them as well as many regular people. We don’t talk in the same way about varying Islamic communal structures that the large majority of people perpetuate but that directly oppress many people (even in the West!) with the threat of harassment, disownment or even violence for transgressing. When we do try to address these issues, the conversation quickly either descends into bigotry (if it didn’t start there already) or perpetuates the false moderate/extremist dichotomy. MLK called out the “White Moderate” in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail but the lesson wasn’t learned.
Finally, as a general plea, can we please stop making comparisons between modern Islamic radicals and the Crusaders and Inquisition? They rely on fundamental misunderstandings of each phenomenon and the communities they arose from.
Well, first you not only condemn Wahabbist terrorists, but the religion itself:
…as well as the leaders of the religion:
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Now, while I may accept that some small isolated mountain village might deserve somewhat of a pass on this, to attempt to give a sect like Wahabbists a pass flies in the face of reason. Do you think that the leaders of the religion are ignorant of the where the world is today? Ignorant of the advances in science? Ignorant o civilized concepts like democracy, equal protection under the law, religious freedom. That’s both extraordinary and extraordinarily insulting to a sect with millions of very wealthy and well educated followers.
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What the fuck are you talking about? They are scum. Among the worst people on earth, among the worst people in history. Wahabbism (and other extreme interpretations that promote violence) is a terrible philosophy, and responsible for much violence.
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(Note that the “they” in the above refers not to those who commit terrorist acts, but to the leaders of the religion.)
But then you backpedal your condemnation:
[QUOTE=iiandiiii]
[QUOTE=magellan01]
Are you saying that all Wahabbists are murderous, barbaric assholes?
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No. I was talking about the ones who commit murder – the ones who commit murder are definitely murderous, barbaric assholes, the same as the Crusader mass murderers of past centuries.
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So which is it? Is the problem just Wahhabist terrorists or Wahabbism itself? Is it or is it not, as you say, “an evil philosophy”?
I’m not sure to what portion of what O wrote you’re referring to specifically, but I’d say it’s constantly occurring. There might even be two steps forward and one step back in areas, but over the long sweep of history, the world has gotten more civilized and less barbaric. And because of that, barbarism sticks out now, since it is not the norm. Case in point is how the more civilized parts of the world view stoning of adulterers, killing of homosexuals, killing of people who leave the religion, beheadings of infidels, etc.
What do you think is distinctively evil about Wahhabism (which is not a term of self-identification, for the record) compared to other Islamic traditions?
If you meet someone who thinks that death for apostasy is not barbaric, how would you convince them that they were wrong?
I think that the civilized/barbaric thing is another way of restating the clash of civilizations, only worse since at least Huntington talked about identities that many people claim for themselves. Who claims to be barbaric? Not al-Qaeda.
Do you think it’s possible to reject “civilized” as an objective concept but not fall into the paralysis of moral relativism?
The “they” I was referring to (as was clear in that last sentence) were the Wahabbist murderers.
No I don’t.
Wahabbism is an evil philosophy and has contributed to a lot of violence and oppression. Wahabbism is different from Islam as a whole. I have no problem at all with criticizing Wahabbism and other schools of thought that promote violence, within Islam and outside of it, but these criticisms are not valid when applied to Islam as a whole.
Of course, the civilized world also includes most of the Muslim world where such actions are also condemned, so it seems silly to use such barbarous acts as an indictment of Islam as a whole.
Actually, much of the civilized world has concluded that the death penalty, in any form, is barbaric. As you happen to live in a country that has only partially come to the same awareness and as you do not seem to have a problem with it, you have simply drawn the line demarking the edge of barbarism to exclude your world. Convenient, that.
Wahhabi and Salafi are often used interchangeably these days but they are not identical. Wahhabism began as a 18th century movement against what the scholar Muhammad abd al-Wahhab thought were polytheistic elements in traditional Arabian life. Salafism began as a 19th century reaction to the incursion of Western modernity. Followers of Wahhab were eventually submerged into the Salafi movement in the last 50 years or so, but they are still a relatively distinctive group within it, for their relationship to the Hanbali madhab; their establishment’s support for the Saudi state, and some other uniquely Arabian characteristics.
Salaf is a reference to the generations of Muslims contemporary to and immediately following Muhammad, who are seen as the best of people of any time. This itself is a very orthodox belief for Sunnis of all sects, even if they don’t agree on the modern implications of it.
The Wahhabi attitude toward other religions is common to modern conservative Muslims and the historical scholarly mainstream. Saudi Arabian policy is kind of a special case because of a tradition that Muhammad said that non-Muslims could not be in Arabia, but for other countries Wahhabis theoretically accept People of the Book openly living there (under the rules, naturally) and actually argue that they would be best protected in a truly Islamic society. They do, of course, also say lots of hateful things even about People of the Book, but this isn’t something that is distinctively Wahhabi. They are much harsher toward Muslims who they see as heretical Muslims, and this is a more distinctive thing about them, but even it is more a matter of scale and harshness than kind. Ahmadi Muslims get crap from lots of other Muslim groups in addition to Wahhabis.
The Wahhabi attitudes toward violence are not particularly distinctive, nor are they uniform. Almost no Islamic groups are pacifist and even though there is much disagreement about when violence is called for and who can call for it, establishment Wahhabi scholars are not terribly out of the historical mainstream on this issue. And in fact, many Wahhabis and Salafis stress loyalty to even tyrannical government and rail against anarchy. As the Arab proverb goes: ‘better sixty years of tyranny than one night of anarchy.’
The extent to which the large majority of Wahhabis advocate killing civilians (which is not much, if you accept that people can have different definitions of ‘civilian’) in times of legitimate warfare is also not out of the historical scholarly mainstream.
What’s unique about Wahhabis and Salafis theologically is primarily their attitudes toward interpretative agency and authority.
I nearly puked when he insisted that women in Indonesia have “equal rights” with men.
That was a pretty clear example of him deliberately lying and taking advantage of the ignorance of the viewers.
Of course in Indonesia men have the right to have four wives but women can have no more than one husband, and virtually all family matters, such as divorce, inheritance etc. are handled by religious courts which don’t even pretend that women are treated equally.
This is all quite different than my understanding of Wahhabism/Salafism. If you are correct, then it actually reinforces my point further – perhaps it is only a minority of Wahhabists/Salafists that support extreme violence and terrorism of civilians, and it’s nearly as wrong to cast blame on the entirety of Wahhabism for the acts of a small number of Wahhabists as it is to cast blame on the entirety of Islam for the actions of a relatively small number of Muslims.